Why do we have so many pointless spells now...

Seriously we used to use nearly EVERY spell in our arsanal! Now we have these spells like Mind Control, totally awesome... but where in raiding can you use it? Trash is immune and it's no longer used on boss fights! Mind sooth, what the fuck! On Instructor in Naxx (old and new) you used to have to mind sooth to get close enough! I mean seriously -_- I just want to MC trash... just... MC...Trash...

I use MC, Levitate and Mind Soothe often enough. but i know what you mean...

Ultility spells are only there for certain situations and mechanics, but because the game is so heavily mapped out and they are now steering away from class favouring (Ie. PvE mechanics that makes it so you NEED a certain class) just about all bosses and situations should not require any utility spells because of that reason. I know it sucks, but if they gave us something to use MC on in raids what would happen to a group with no priests?

Back in Vanilla it was different 40 mans meant it was certain you'd have every class, so they could put in a mechanics that required utility spells.

You're primarily using "raids" as an example. You won't use EVERY spell in that one situation. MC is great in heroics. Many mobs do more damage than you can do so it's a DPS boost and a CC. Just about every spell can be used at 85, it just calls for a right situation.

Back in Vanilla it was different 40 mans meant it was certain you'd have every class, so they could put in a mechanics that required utility spells.

So the solution to that problem seems simple; Bring back the Massive aspect of MMO. Dropping things down to 5 and 10 mans may seem like a good idea on paper, but as a result, it pushes the players apart. In addition to that, there is no room for creativity in terms of utility because Blizzard has to make it so any group can succeed. They no longer can make a boss where a priest is required because that forces "bring the class not the player." While that is a valid idea, in practice it can cause problems such as stagnation.

So the solution to that problem seems simple; Bring back the Massive aspect of MMO. Dropping things down to 5 and 10 mans may seem like a good idea on paper, but as a result, it pushes the players apart. In addition to that, there is no room for creativity in terms of utility because Blizzard has to make it so any group can succeed. They no longer can make a boss where a priest is required because that forces "bring the class not the player." While that is a valid idea, in practice it can cause problems such as stagnation.

Indeed sir. The massive scope of 40 mans was awesome. the co-ordination needed was alot more than 10 or 25 man. But it goes both ways. Getting together 40 people every week multiple times was a pain in the ass. Took so much work to set up. learn where to stand and what to do. but getting together 10 people is ALOT easier and takes alot less time to sort out things like loot and ranking. (ie. Class leaders for 40 mans) and you have less baddies. in 40 mans bad players can get away with making mistakes while the good raiders carry them. was almost impossible to get 40 good raiders lol.

So even if they had more tools and the fights might be more fun, it would take alot to go back to 40 mans. Think about how much loot they'd have to make drop using the formula they use for 25 mans.

So the solution to that problem seems simple; Bring back the Massive aspect of MMO. Dropping things down to 5 and 10 mans may seem like a good idea on paper, but as a result, it pushes the players apart. In addition to that, there is no room for creativity in terms of utility because Blizzard has to make it so any group can succeed. They no longer can make a boss where a priest is required because that forces "bring the class not the player." While that is a valid idea, in practice it can cause problems such as stagnation.

Designing encounters around absolutely needing a specific comp does not inspire "creativity in terms of utility". All it does is make it harder for friends to chose to play with each other simply because of which class they happened to roll. For example, Razuvious in Naxxramas requiring priests to happen to press some arbitrary button that they happen to have in order to be able to complete an encounter, or the original Four Horsemen requiring an inordinate number of geared up tanks, did not really in any way do anything to further the enjoyment of gameplay.

The old concept of class specificity, if anything, not only "pushed players apart" and but probably also pushed a lot of people out of the endgame entirely!

Seriously we used to use nearly EVERY spell in our arsanal! Now we have these spells like Mind Control, totally awesome... but where in raiding can you use it? Trash is immune and it's no longer used on boss fights! Mind sooth, what the fuck! On Instructor in Naxx (old and new) you used to have to mind sooth to get close enough! I mean seriously -_- I just want to MC trash... just... MC...Trash...

Raiding isn't the whole game. Spells that seem useless to you as a raider, are of use for people who pvp. If you think your class should be justified in a raid simply because it brings a mandatory ability, I think you have missed that Blizzard went away from that design meaning that bosses can't require as many specific abilities and doesn't plan to go back to it currently.

Seriously we used to use nearly EVERY spell in our arsanal! Now we have these spells like Mind Control, totally awesome... but where in raiding can you use it? Trash is immune and it's no longer used on boss fights! Mind sooth, what the fuck! On Instructor in Naxx (old and new) you used to have to mind sooth to get close enough! I mean seriously -_- I just want to MC trash... just... MC...Trash...

It's this kind of thinking that robbed classes of some of their most fun abilities in Cata, kindly leave my WoW alone and go play UtilitarianismCraft.

Designing encounters around absolutely needing a specific comp does not inspire "creativity in terms of utility". All it does is make it harder for friends to chose to play with each other simply because of which class they happened to roll. For example, Razuvious in Naxxramas requiring priests to happen to press some arbitrary button that they happen to have in order to be able to complete an encounter, or the original Four Horsemen requiring an inordinate number of geared up tanks, did not really in any way do anything to further the enjoyment of gameplay.

The old concept of class specificity, if anything, not only "pushed players apart" and but probably also pushed a lot of people out of the endgame entirely!

So you're telling me you have 25+ friends that you play with on a regular basis that you couldn't fit to a certain utility need? I find that very hard to believe. I'd also argue that your example of Razuvious did make the encounter more enjoyable. It was creative in how it handled an ability a class had, and therefore how the encounter played out. Speaking as a priest, performing my role of MCer really made me feel special and a needed part of the group. It did not mean that I was brought just because of the ability I had, I was there either way.

Yes, that no longer works, but that's because Blizzard is pushing us into smaller and smaller groups. Instead of having to coordinate with a group of others, it now easily boils down to a few close friends. Is there something wrong with that? Not per se, but it's naive to say making groups smaller inspired creativity. For that matter, it would be hard to say the smaller groups are likely to breed creativity, due to their, by design, restrictive nature.

As I said before, what I wrote Seems like a simple suggestion, but I know it's not.

Side note though, if there's no real use for utility spells, they're easily dispensable. In that case, does it really make sense to have them, or is it just some false sense of advancement?

Designing encounters around absolutely needing a specific comp does not inspire "creativity in terms of utility". All it does is make it harder for friends to chose to play with each other simply because of which class they happened to roll. For example, Razuvious in Naxxramas requiring priests to happen to press some arbitrary button that they happen to have in order to be able to complete an encounter, or the original Four Horsemen requiring an inordinate number of geared up tanks, did not really in any way do anything to further the enjoyment of gameplay.

The old concept of class specificity, if anything, not only "pushed players apart" and but probably also pushed a lot of people out of the endgame entirely!

4 horseman is probably the worst example of that, but like i said, it wasnt an issue in 40 mans what class you were because there was ALWAYS every class. All he is saying is it gives them a wider range of tools they can use. Like Class call on Nefarian was pretty fun everyone was effected differently, it also meant every class could have unique abilities and buffs. Shaman totems or auras, and they could be stacked for tanks or shadowpriests for the healers group etc. This whole part of the game, where who goes in what group to recieve what buffs is completely gone.

Yes it made the game alot more complicated, yes it probably drove people away, but compare it to where the game is going. Every buff is the same and nothing stacks. Utility spells are completely pointless. I probably use 1/3 of the amount of spells i have on my bars. Gear is becoming same. Boss mechanics laid out for us in game. Strategies out before the raids are. Boss mechanics repeated (Stack here, spread there, dont stand in the fire) Now threat is gone too.

None of our spells are pointless. Many are situational — you won't use them in every aspect of play. If you want to mind control so badly, run a heroic or do some pvp.

It's not like this was different back in vanilla when in a lot of encounters you just used 1 or 2 spells for an entire encounter. I'd say I use a much larger percentage of my spells now than I did back then.

if you like a spell try finding a home for it. Sooth and MC your heart out doing dailies, I personally like to use Holy Nova whenever possible (on critters, low level mobs, sometimes in PVP). I don't think utility spells should be required for dungeons or raids, or every group will have to have X class in order to get through it.

So the solution to that problem seems simple; Bring back the Massive aspect of MMO. .

Sorry, but no. Bringing back 40 man raids is the answer to nothing because you introduce more problems then fixes. There is much less margin for error in 10's and 25's, as there aren't as many people to pick up the slack.

As people have already pointed out, not every spell is going to be useful in every situation, BUT almost all spells do have a use somewhere. Hell, even levitate has a PvE use on Ragnaros.

Only thing I miss is using Shackle Undead. It's a very pretty CC but there is virtually nothing to shackle in Cata. *sad face*

To allow us to use Mind Control within a Boss encounter they either need to give the ability to another class or two (probably Warlocks - Dominate Mind or something) or as with 10man Naxx provide an alternative environment based method to gain control of the mob that needs to be controlled, which kind of defeats the point. Also if it was allowed in Boss encounters, any tactics that involve a Humanoid add could be circumvented or abused by chain Mind Controlling the add, which isn't a good thing.

Mind Soothe has it's uses in skipping trash and sneaking around, but isn't necessary and I cannot see a reason for it to ever be a mandatory thing.

Mind Vision is just for fun and for tracking sneaky Rogues if you're quick enough. Mind hopping around Orgrimmar and during down time in raids provides a distraction from time to time. Trying to get as far as you can outside a city through mind hopping is a good tedium filler too. One thing I've never tried is to Mind Vision Deathwing as he nukes a zone. I wonder if that's possible.

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.